DAR, State University forge partnership to boost ARCs in Catanduanes

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has recently sealed an accord with the Catanduanes State University (CSU) that would help develop agrarian reform communities (ARCs) in the province into efficient agri-business enterprises.

Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer (PARPO) II Alexander Teves and State Universities and Colleges President-III Dr. Minerva Morales of CSU signed the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) covering institutional support programs for Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) and their organizations in their social infrastructure and agricultural enterprise development activities.

Teves said the DAR would shoulder training costs and materials covered in the agreement while the CSU would provide training modules and other instructional medium, including provision of professional services as trainors, secretariat support, and consultancy based on the approved training programs.

“This partnership with the academe is seen to spur new initiatives in terms of managing ARC organizations’ development affairs,” Teves said.

Dr. Morales, on the other hand, said that the academe should remain at the heart of any development effort in the community. “The kind of development prevailing in the society would reflect the kind of academe it has,” she added.

In response, Tito Torillos, a farmer-beneficiary of Barangay Biong, Gigmoto lauded the two institutions for coming up with an intervention program that would greatly benefit the farmers in general.

Teves said the partnership is another highlight in the DAR’s rural development efforts in the province as it slowly but steadily shifts its operations towards Program Beneficiaries’ Development (PBD) activities before the year ends. PBD is a support service program that aims to capacitate the farmer-beneficiaries to make their lands more productive.

Teves further said that Catanduanes would be a land-reformed province soon as he expressed confidence to distribute, by the end of the year, the last landholding placed under the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

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